ED attaches ₹36 crore of Reliance General Insurance & Trinity Reinsurance Brokers in J&K case
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday said it has attached fixed deposits and a piece of land worth more than ₹36 crore of Reliance General Insurance Pvt Ltd (RGIPL) and Trinity Reinsurance Brokers Private Ltd (TRBL), treating them as suspected proceeds of crime in the insurance scam of Jammu and Kashmir.
Sharing the break up, the agency said, while attached fixed deposits valued at ₹32.53 crore belongs to the RGIPL, the piece of land worth ₹4.04 crore is in the name Globus Trade Links Private Ltd, a subsidiary of the TRBL.
The insurance scam was registered by the CBI and ED on the basis of a complaint lodged by former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satyapal Malik who had charged that he was offered bribe to clear files relating to medical insurance of government employees. The ED said it has issued a provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for attaching the assets of Reliance and Trinity.
Deliberate award
The ED alleged that the investigation revealed that J&K’s finance department “deliberately” awarded the tender to engage a insurance broker for designing and floating the bid and for implementation of the said health scheme for government employees and pensioners by “dubious or questionable” selection process to Trinity without holding the essential eligibility criteria.
“Moreover, the tender for engagement of IRDAI registered insurance company was awarded through TRBL to the said insurance company (RGIPL) which was already blacklisted by the Chhattisgarh government by modification and deletion of essential eligibility criteria even though the said company had less presence in the (erstwhile) state of J&K and bare minimum experience, as pre requirement of the said tender, during the stipulated period,” it said.
An amount of ₹63.53 crore was “fraudulently” disbursed to the above companies through the dubious way, the agency said. Out of this amount, the medical claims of about ₹17 crore have been disbursed by RGIPL, agency stated.
Malik, who was questioned by the CBI in this case last year, had made sensational claims that he was offered a ₹300-crore bribe for clearing the two files on insurance of government employees and another project, during his stint as the J&K governor, from August 23, 2018, to October 30, 2019. This was before the Article 370 was removed to convert J&K into a Union Territory.
